Upcoming Conference Presentations

I'm very excited to announce that I have three upcoming conferences or presentations for 2014. If you are in Michigan or the vicinity, I hope you will be able to join us at one of them! I would love to make some more library friends. If you know me, you know I geek professional development and I'm a big fan of conferences for the in-person interaction.

The first one is the Michigan KidLib Unconference in Clinton Township (Metro Detroit). I've already written about this awesome day that I'm planning with Lisa and Andrea, but I just wanted to remind you that it's going to be Friday, February 21st. Registration is completely FREE and anyone interested in youth services is welcome, especially library school students. We have over 70 registered attendees! There's still time to sign up, if you'd like to join us.

Next up, I will be co-presenting (with Lisa and Megan Goedge) a Guerrilla Storytime on Friday, March 28th at the Michigan Library Association's Spring Institute. This will be my third year straight at SI so I won't blame anyone who is sick of seeing my name in the speaker list.

And, last but not least, I will be giving my first-ever solo presentation at the Library of Michigan's Loleta Fyan Rural Libraries Conference on Wednesday, April 30 at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island! My program is called "Aww 'Chute: Children's Programming Activities with Parachutes, Scarves, and Other Props" and just reading the name gives me a little bit of glee. If you're wondering who Loleta Fyan was, she was Michigan's first State Librarian and her Wikipedia article can fill you in on her accomplishments. As someone who grew up in a teeny-tiny small town (with no stop lights and there were only 27 kids in my senior class at a public high school), rural libraries are a critical resource and a passion of mine--even though I now work for a large public library system (and love it!). More details on the conference will be available soon so keep checking the Library of Michigan's site.

I'd like to thank my co-presenters, the Michigan Library Association, and the Library of Michigan for having me. And extra big thank yous go out to my wonderful workplace (both the library system and my awesome children's services staff) for supporting me by letting me go to these events and also to my husband and family.